A SUCCESSFUL outcome to the Geneva 2 negotiations on Syria,
which began last week, is vital if the flood of Christians out of
the country is to be halted, Christian leaders from the country
say.
The Revd Dr Riad Jarjour, a Presbyterian who was brought up in
Homs and is a former head of the Middle East Council of Churches,
told Fox News this week: "If the Geneva talks do not result in a
peaceful resolution that will end the violence and end the war in
Syria, more Christians will be internally displaced, and more of
them will be seeking refuge outside Syria."
"Now Christian people don't feel comfortable any more," Dr
Jarjour said. In many places, radical Islamic groups had taken
control, destroying churches and creating areas where there were no
longer any Christians to be found.
Bishop Dionysius Jean Kawak, of the Syrian Orthodox Church, also
urged those attending the Geneva talks to find a way of ending the
conflict while there was still a Christian community in Syria: "At
the beginning of the crisis, we didn't encounter a real problem
against Christians, but nowadays Christians are being
targeted."
Whether a comprehensive accord to bring peace to Syria can be
reached in Geneva remains to be seen. While widespread satisfaction
was expressed over the successful convening of the Switzerland
negotiations, after months of diplomatic setbacks, the first
indications were that progress towards resolving the multi-layered
crisis would be, at best, very slow.
The first direct meeting produced one positive result: an
agreement to allow women and children to leave Homs, which has been
besieged by government forces since June 2012, and for a corridor
for humanitarian relief supplies to be opened up. But the deal was
not immediately implemented as promised - there were a number of
security issues still to be overcome, the Syrian government
said.
President Obama's administration joined opposition leaders in
criticising the Homs agreement as inadequate, saying that it should
apply to all civilians, not just women and children, and begin
without delay. "The situation is desperate, and the people are
starving," a US State Department spokesman said on Monday. "There
should be no reason for delay. The regime must act now."
On Tuesday, the Geneva talks ran into serious difficulties when
the question of a transitional government was raised by the veteran
UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi. The Syrian government's set of
principles failed to mention the transition process, as outlined in
Geneva 1. Instead, the government concentrated on the need to
remove "terrorists" - the Damascus authorities' term for opposition
fighters - from Syrian soil and end the West's backing of them. By
midday, the talks had been adjourned in an atmosphere of mutual
recrimination.
Little has happened so far to raise the spirits of Syrian
Christians listening and watching for any sign of progress in
Geneva. But they received some good news at the weekend, in the
form of confirmation that the group of 12 nuns taken away by
Islamist gunmen from their convent in Maaloula, north of Damascus,
last December (News, 13
December), are alive and well in the nearby town of
Yabroud.
Patriarch John X of Antioch & All the East told reporters in
Beirut: "The nuns are fine. I personally spoke to them over the
phone a few days ago." But he said that it was "not enough for us
to know they are OK. We hope they will be released soon, along with
the two kidnapped bishops."
The Syriac Orthodox and Greek Orthodox Archbishops of Aleppo,
Mar Yohanna Ibrahim and the Most Revd Paul Yazigi, were seized in
northern Syria last April, and have not been seen since (News, 31
May).